The agricultural sector finally said it out loud: farmer mental health is a crisis. The proposed solutions won't fix it. Here's what does — and what I wish someone had handed me twenty years ago.
The Rodale Institute just published a piece making the case that farmer fairness has to extend beyond wages and labor protections — into the psychological and emotional weight of the work itself. They cited what most of us already knew: farmers and agricultural professionals experience some of the highest rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide of any occupation in the U.S.
They're right to surface it. Most of the sector has been quiet about this for decades. Naming it out loud takes courage and it deserves recognition.
But veterans know how this story usually goes. The sector admits the problem. The sector proposes wellness training, nature-based learning, awareness campaigns, hotlines. The crisis continues. Because the proposed solutions are aimed at symptoms while the structural cause goes untouched.
Veterans make up about 11% of American farmers. That intersection — veteran farmers — is one of the highest-risk occupational demographics in the country. If you're reading this, this letter is for you specifically.
I started my first business in 2006. Five Star Saloon in Reno. Eventually grew it into Rise Nightclub — twenty thousand square feet, regulated nightlife, dozens of staff, the whole circus. By any conventional measure I was succeeding. By the measure that actually mattered, I was drowning.
Not because the work was hard. Veterans know hard work. Because I was holding the entire operation in my head with nobody who actually understood the specific situation well enough to think with me about it. The financial decisions. The staff drama. The regulatory navigation. The competitive sabotage from operators who didn't want a Black-owned, gay-friendly nightclub thriving in their market. The eighteen incompatible things demanding decisions on any given day.
I had advisors. I had consultants when I could afford them. I had peers in the industry I could talk to. None of them could hold the context. Every conversation started with twenty minutes of recontextualization before I could ask the question I actually needed help with. Most of the time I just didn't bother. I made decisions alone. I lost sleep alone. I carried the load alone.
Sound